Nahrstedt named director of the Coordinated Science Laboratory

Klara Nahrstedt is the new Director of the Coordinated Science Laboratory, according to an announcement today from College of Engineering Dean Andreas Cangellaris.

Klara Nahrstedt

Nahrstedt, the Ralph M. and Catherine V. Fisher Professor in the Department of Computer Science, has served as acting director of CSL since 2013. Her appointment is effective Feb. 16, 2015, pending approval by the University’s Board of Trustees.

“I think Professor Nahrstedt is the right person to lead CSL to the next level,” explained College of Engineering Dean Andreas Cangellaris. “She is an exceptional scholar with an international reputation and a substantial record of administrative and leadership experiences. As CSL’s acting director since July 2013, she has developed a bold vision for the institution’s role in tackling some of the most pressing interdisciplinary societal challenges.”

Under her leadership, CSL is opening new research and office space in the CSL Studio. She has assisted in launching new initiatives on the creation and correlation of data building blocks for new materials and device fabrication, is fostering computational genomics and health IT initiatives, and is planning more new investments in the areas of the Internet of Things, machine learning, robotics, smart cities, smart cyber-physical infrastructures and more.

Nahrstedt, who joined the Illinois faculty in 1995, is a leading researcher in multimedia systems. Her fundamental work on energy-efficient dynamic soft-real-time CPU scheduling for mobile multimedia devices, and development of first energy-efficient OS for mobile multimedia devices, GRACE-OS, has been widely recognized in academia and industry.

In the field of 3D tele-immersive systems and networking, Nahrstedt was the first to develop a multi-view 3D video adaptation framework for bandwidth management and view-casting protocols for multi-view 3D video. She developed new metrics for 3D immersive video and the first comprehensive framework based on sound theoretical underpinnings for Quality of Experience in Distributed Interactive Multimedia Environments.

Nahrstedt received her BA in mathematics (1984) and a MSc degree (1985) in numerical analysis from Humboldt University, Berlin. She was a research scientist in the Institute for Informatik in Berlin until 1990. In 1995, she received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Computer and Information Science. She was twice elected chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Multimedia. She is an ACM Fellow and an IEEE Fellow. Her honors include the 2009 Humboldt Fellow Research Award, the 2012 IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award, the 2013 ACM Fellow recognition, and induction into the German National Academy of Sciences in 2014.

Nahrstedt replaces previous director William H. Sanders, who was appointed Head of Illinois’ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in August 2014.

"CSL is a premier research institution that has impacted the real world for more than 60 years with its scientific achievements," she said. "I am excited for this opportunity to collaborate with many of the Illinois' top researchers and to help design a pathway to continue advancing disciplinary and interdisciplinary breakthroughs in the future."